Unclutterer {Home Tour}

As warmer days arrive and birds start singin' their songs, Spring cleaning and organization becomes all the rage. We want to unclutter, neatly contain our chaos, send the dust bunnies packing, and make our homes sparkle. It's almost hardwired into our DNA, we must start the season with a fresh, very clean, and organized slate. I've invited Erin Doland, the editor of Unclutterer, to take us on a tour of her mid-century modern home located just outside of Washington, D.C. so we can inspect her organization techniques and learn a few tricks from a pro. Here's hoping this post will encourage us as we embark on the annual Spring clean-up!

First, a little about Erin's home. A three-story home shared with her husband, don't let the number of floors fool ya, it only has around 1,300 square feet of livable space. I think that's enough for a married couple, but considering that both work full-time from home, you can see why they need to keep their home organized and clutter-free. Built in the middle of the last century, it's architectural design was inspired by the international style. With plenty of light flooding the home since both the east and the west walls are predominantly glass, the north and south walls are a combination of brick and concrete on the exterior and your common dry wall inside. Ready to take a little tour? Erin will take it from here...

Erin Doland: A tiny bathroom is the only room on the first floor of our home, and was actually too small for me to be able to photograph effectively. Instead of showing you it, here is a picture of the hallway that leads to it. We've hung an art gallery system in this space and often swap the art as we feel inspired.

Erin Doland: The second level of our home is a large, open space. Looking to the north, the bookshelves are Cubits shelving units and can be reconfigured into many shapes. On the left shelves, you can see that we've turned an Olivetti typewriter upside down in one of the cubes as a design element when it's not in use. The fire hydrant and dog sculpted out of packing tape were made by artist Mark Jenkins and were used in his Storker Project. I feel that I should add that we purchased them as part of a Katrina fundraiser and didn't just grab them off the street. The color scheme of the room -- orange, green, and yellow -- was inspired by the Metropolis poster above the fireplace. The poster was the first piece purchased for this room.

Erin Doland: A south view of the living area is a small cubby where I store my pedal steel guitar, amplifier, and family photographs. The floating white shelves are from West Elm. The chair behind the guitar is a 1960's Nakashima walnut Mira chair.

Erin Doland: Standing in the kitchen, you can get a view of our dining area and the west end of our living room. The table was made for us by sculptor Michael Sirvet and is surrounded by eight different chairs of mid-century and contemporary design. The large pork poster is from the National Pork Board campaign that was launched in 2001. It is the only poster created for the campaign that wasn't used in a public space and was what I gave to my husband as a wedding gift. We find it very humorous, but we're not so certain our vegetarian friends do.

Erin Doland: Standing in the dining area and looking south, you can see our kitchen. The west side of our house is glass, and you can see a piece of it sticking through in the upper corner of this picture. Since all of the chairs around our dining table are different, we replaced all of the kitchen drawer and door pulls with different glass knobs.

Erin Doland: On the third floor of our home is the master bedroom, bathroom and our office. Pictured here is my husband's desk. It has an Ikea Jerker frame and he's replaced the Ikea shelves with high-grade baltic-birch plywood. You can read about his conversion on the Ikea hacker website. Above his desk, you'll see a giant slide ruler that once hung in a math classroom. The slide ruler corresponds with the four-foot pair of scissors that hang above my desk, and the out-dated geography maps we use as window treatments. The room also has a 10' long closet, which can be seen here on Unclutterer. I had hoped to picture our master bedroom, too, but we're currently redecorating it. There isn't much of anything to see in the space right now except for our new panel curtain system. I find a great deal of inspiration on decor8, and I hope that I have been able to provide a little inspiration to you in return.

Thank you Erin for touring us of your very organized home! For organization tips and tricks, visit Erin everyday over on Unclutterer.

(images from erin doland)

http://www.decor8.blogspot.com